2merkato

M2M Group, a Moroccan based information technology, has offered the lowest bid of 8 million US dollars for the supply of 420 Units of Automated Teller Machine and 37 Million birr for the supply of 4000 point of sales machines to the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia.                                              

The letter awarding the contract is yet to be issued by the bank and the bank declined to comment on the process until the vendor has officially been announced.

Some other competitors have lodged complaints with the bank alleging that the price quoted by M2M did not include VAT according to sources.

M2M denies any such allegations as baseless according to a senior manager with the company.

Samira Maatouk, President and CEO of Maatouk Holdings, the leading coffee manufacturer in the Middle East, said she will come to Addis in June hoping to explore investment opportunities in Ethiopian coffee.

Some of the machinery ordered by the Ethiopian government for the building of the Renaissance Dam started arriving in Port Djibouti. The machines that arrived at Port of Djibouti and are ready for transport were imported primarily from the United States and Italy.

A couple of US made Caterpillar family trucks, (990) at a cost of 1.5 million dollars each and Italian Astra machinery (including RD 40 and RD 50) at a cost of 250,00 euros each are currently at Port Djibouti awaiting transport to the project site. The imported machinery consists of bulldozers, dumpers, rollers, graders as well as other heavy duty machines to be utilized in the construction of the Dam said Mr. Pierre Kothari, Agent for Salini Contractors in Djibouti, on Wednesday.

The Made in Ethiopia Expo has facilitated market connections valued at more than Birr 4 billion birr, Minister of Industry Melaku Alebel announced during the closing ceremony of the expo.

Maersk Oil announced on 23 February that it had acquired 50 percent of five Africa Oil Corp. oil exploration licenses in Ethiopia and Kenya. Two of these licenses are contiguous licenses in Southern Ethiopia while the rest three are onshore exploration in Northern part of Kenya.